EU offers visa-free travel to Ukraine

Forty million Ukrainians will be able to travel to continental Europe without a visa, under a major loosening of border policy unveiled in Brussels today.

Ukrainian citizens with biometric passports will be permitted to enter 30 states in the Schengen zone for 90 days for tourism or business.

The move, part of the EU’s strategy of embracing the crisis-hit Kiev government, caused anger in the Netherlands. Dutch voters rejected closer ties with Ukraine under a separate association agreement in a referendum exactly two weeks ago.

The issue of free movement was a major factor in turning Dutch voters against the treaty to harmonise trade and justice policy with Kiev, said Thierry Baudet, of the Forum for Democracy think tank which led the ‘No’ campaign.

“It's a separate treaty, but it has been very clear throughout the campaign here that people did not want visa free travel,” he said. “It was a big concern of many people. It's another form of the EU not listening to people, and pursuing its own agenda.”

One diplomat admitted the vote had meant the Kiev talks were no longer a “mathematical exercise.”

“People will say ‘Woah, where are we now and what are we going to do?’”

The plans – to be presented to national governments and the European Parliament, will boost “people-to-people contacts and strengthen business, social and cultural ties between the EU and Ukraine,” said Dmitris Avramopoulos, the migration commissioner.

The EU is offering a similar scheme to grant visa-free travel to 70 million Turkish citizens from June, in exchange for Turkey halting the flow of refugees into Europe and accepting the deportation of those who do make the crossing.

However, that deal looks at risk of falling apart just weeks before the UK referendum on June 23 – raising the prospect of a return to chaos in the Aegean weeks ahead of the EU referendum if Turkey scales back its coast guard patrols.

The EU has handed Turkey a two-week deadline to complete a radical overhaul of its migration system, including clearing a backlog of 140,000 asylum cases, rewriting data protection and human rights laws and granting refugees access to the labour market.

“No visa liberalisation can be offered if not all benchmarks are met,” said Mr Avramopoulos.

But on Monday Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish Prime Minister, insisted: “The visa exemption will come into effect in June. If this doesn't happen, obviously nobody can expect Turkey to hold its side of the deal.”